April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The Challenge of Closely Fought Elections
Closely fought elections are often fraught with conflict, splitting societies asunder. How can democracy survive such rough and close contests?
Articles
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Six Decades of Independence
By most theoretical accounts, Indian democracy should not even exist. Yet, despite serious challenges, it shows signs of enduring and even deepening.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Economic Growth and Political Accommodation
So far, economic liberalization and globalization have not served to undermine India's democracy. Indeed, they may even be strengthening it.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: Civil Society Versus Corruption
Pervasive corruption hampers India's democracy, yet anticorruption movements may be helping to improve governmental accountability.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
India’s Unlikely Democracy: The Rise of Judicial Sovereignty
India's courts have been playing a growing role in the country's political life. Yet even as judicial interventions have become more sweeping, the principles undergirding their legitimacy have become less clear.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
A Wake-Up Call in Afghanistan
Much has been achieved both in the war against the Taliban and in the larger struggle to create a democratic Afghanistan, but dire problems remain.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition
President Hugo Cháez's regime demonstrates how a public desire for change plus state resources can be exploited to undermine democracy.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Another Russia? Battling KGB, Inc.
The Putin regime is plunging Russia into a deepening crisis. It is time to end the fiction that today's Russia is a democracy.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Another Russia? After the Leviathan
There is a future for democracy in Russia, but it may have to wait until the people begin to feel the problems created by the current system.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Another Russia? Putin’s Invented Opposition
The Kremlin's ultimate need for democratic legitimacy, both at home and abroad, may be the key vulnerability of the Putin regime.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
The 2006 Freedom House Survey: The Pushback Against Democracy
Although the overall state of democracy in the world differed little from that in 2005, a series of worrisome trends seem to be contributing to a stagnation of freedom.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Voting for Change in the DRC
The holding of competitive elections in this vast, strife-torn country must count as a significant achievement, even though voters signaled their disaffection with the entire array of political elites that had been ruling them.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Montenegro: A Miracle in the Balkans?
Tiny Montenegro gained its independence in a referendum in May 2006. What forces lay behind its completely peaceful break from its much larger neighbor, Serbia?
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Are New Democracies War-Prone?
A review of Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War by Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Assisting Political Parties
A review of Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies by Thomas Carothers.
April 2007, Volume 18, Issue 2
Seymour Martin Lipset (1922–2006)
A tribute in remembrance of the life of Seymour Martin Lipset (1922–2006).
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
The Perpetual Crises of Democracy
Democracy is and always will be in some kind of crisis, for it is constantly redirecting its citizens’ gaze from a more or less unsatisfactory present toward a future of still unfulfilled possibilities.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
How Democracies Emerge: The “Sequencing” Fallacy
Many critics of democracy promotion assert that the rule of law and a well-functioning state should be in place before a society democratizes, but this strategy of "sequencing" is based on a set of mistaken premises.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
How Democracies Emerge: Lessons from Europe
Those who argue that democracy requires preconditions often cite the example of gradual unfolding set by the established democracies. A glance at history, however, shows that even today's most placid democracies have "backstories" as turbulent as anything found in the developing world today.
January 2007, Volume 18, Issue 1
Revolution Reconsidered
The recent "color revolutions" in the former Soviet Union should lead us to reassess the idea of revolution and also to consider the weaknesses of the concept of "democratic transition.